Condition Report:
All cushions are in good condition and are double sided The 5th cover does not have a cushion There is a faint ink mark to one and a slight stain to another with a little wear here and there but as the additional images show the general order is good. Condition Disclaimer Under the Conditions of Sale applicable to the sale of the lot, buyers must satisfy themselves as to each and every aspect of the quality of the lot, including (without limitation) its authorship, attribution, condition, provenance, authenticity, age, suitability and origin. Lots are sold on an 'as is' basis but the actual condition of the lot may not be as good as indicated by its outward appearance. In particular parts may have been replaced or renewed and lots may not be authentic or of satisfactory quality. Any statement in relation to the lot is merely an expression of opinion of the seller or Lyon & Turnbull and should not be relied upon as an inducement to bid on the lot. Lots are available for inspection prior to the sale and you are strongly advised to examine any lot in which you are interested prior to the sale. Our condition report has not been prepared by a professional conservator, restorer or engineer.

Description:
MORRIS WILLIAM: (1834-1896) English Textile Designer & Artist, associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and Arts & Crafts Movement. A.L.S., William Morris, one page, 8vo, Kelmscott House, Hammersmith, 9th July n.y., to Mr. Burns. Morris informs his correspondent that he cannot venture out on Sunday evenings 'on account of the necessity of my nursing the Hammersmith Branch' although adds that he could do it on a week day. Some minor, light overall staining, otherwise VG

Condition Report:
Pencil and watercolour on paper, not laid down, a few small fox marks along with slight dirt smuding and a little discolouration around the margins, unevenly cropped around the edges, set against a washline mount which is a little discoloured and slim gilt frame, not signed but label verso from The Little Gallery of Kensington with attribution. Please submit your absentee bids on www.gorringes.co.uk or e-mail clientservices@gorringes.co.uk FURTHER IMAGES ALREADY AVAILABLE AT WWW.GORRINGES.CO.UK Descriptions provided in both printed and on-line catalogue formats do not include condition reports. The absence of a condition statement does not imply that the lot is in perfect condition or completely free from wear and tear, imperfections or the effects of aging. Interested bidders are strongly encouraged to request a condition report on any lots upon which they intend to bid, prior to placing a bid. All transactions are governed by Gorringes Conditions of Sale.

Description:
Title: The Life and Death of Jason: A Poem Author: William MorrisPublisher: Bell and Daldy (London)Printing Year: 1867Condition/Details: Bound in red cloth with paper spine label, this antique volume is a scarce edition of this early publication by William Morris (1834-1896), an English architect, furniture and textile designer, artist, writer, socialist and Marxist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement. The volume shows external age/wear,with faded spine. The book is solidly bound with a text that is largely clean and unmarked. Preliminary and final pages show foxing. The book measures approximately 5 1/4" x 7 3/4" and contains 363 pages. Shipping cost (within the U.S.) for this lot will be: $4.50

Description:
The portiere designed by J.H. Dearle, the motto probably designed by May Morris, manufactured by Morris & Co, circa 1890 Silk on linen, the mushroom ground decorated with a pair of pigeons perched on scrolling foliage, with a fruit laden tree and two flowering shrubs, the background with polychrome flowers and foliage, the upper border decorated with a furled banner bearing the inscription: "All wrought by the worm in the peasant - Carle's cot. On the mulberry leafage when the summer was hot.", with seven suspension loops 9ft.11in. by 5ft.21/2in. (297cm. by 158.8cm.) LITERATURE Linda Parry, William Morris Textiles, London, 1983, p. 30 (similar example illustrated, without inscription, the pattern embroidered on silk damask by Mrs Battye) NOTES Though the design of this portiere is recorded as that of Henry Dearle, the additional motto is attributed to the hand of William Morris' daughter, May, who managed the embroidery section of the company from 1885-1896 and whose known contemporary designs closely match the style of lettering seen here. The very high quality of the stitching and colouring indicates that the piece was almost certainly executed in the embroidery workshops of Morris & Co. as opposed to having been completed by the company's clients, as was sometimes the case. We are grateful to Peter Cormack of the William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow for his help in preparing this catalogue entry.

Description:
God Speed signed and dated 'E.BLAIR LEIGHTON.1900.' (lower left) oil on canvas 63 x 455/8 in. (160 x 116 cm.) ENGRAVED A photogravure was published by Louis Wolff & Co. Ltd. before 1913. LITERATURE Royal Academy Pictures, 1900, London, 1900, illustrated, p. 55. Academy Notes, 1900, London, 1900, pp. 24, 118 (illustrated). Alfred Yockley, 'The Art of Edmund Blair Leighton', Art Annual, London, Christmas 1913, pp. 11 (illustrated), 31. EXHIBITION London, Royal Academy, 1900, no. 606. NOTES Edmund Blair Leighton was well known in his day. He contributed a total of sixty-six pictures to the Royal Academy summer exhibitions. Often large and eye-catching works, they were popular with the public and widely reproduced. 'No work is more popular than his among publishers', wrote a critic in 1900, and his Times obituary noted that his pictures were, 'in photogravure form,...seen in so many homes.' The Art Journal devoted an article to him in 1900, and at Christmas 1913 he was the subject of its Art Annual . He had an entry in Who's Who, and not only the Times but the Connoisseur carried an obituary. Yet today Blair Leighton is a somewhat mysterious figure. His pictures are by no means unknown in the saleroom, even if they are seldom as imposing as the two offered here. There is a major example in the Leeds Art Gallery ( Lady Godiva, 1892). One of his earliest works ( A Flaw in the Title, 1878) is at Royal Holloway College, and a characteristic eighteenth-century genre scene ( Launched in Life, 1894) will be familiar to those who patronise the St James's Restaurant at Fortnum and Mason's. But there was never a Chantrey picture in the Tate to appear from time to time and, even in the days when such works were ridiculed, keep his memory green. Nor, so far as we know, has any modern scholar made him the subject of research. His father, Charles Blair Leighton (1823-1855), was a short-lived painter of portraits, historical subjects and genre. He studied under Benjamin Robert Haydon, being a fellow pupil of Landseer, Eastlake, George Lance and William Bewick, and exhibited for several years at the Royal Academy and the British Institution. His chalk drawing of the radical politician Joseph Hume (1777-1855) is in the National Portrait Gallery. He also conducted research into colour lithography, being a senior partner in a family firm, Leighton Bros, which specialised in lithographic reproduction. From 1852 he had a studio at 4 Red Lion Square in London's bohemian quarter, Bloomsbury, but he can hardly have had any contact with the famous occupants of no. 17. Rossetti and Walter Howell Deverel had moved out in 1851, and Morris and Burne-Jones did not arrive until 1856, by which time Charles Leighton was dead. Edmund was born in London on 21 September 1858, one of three children of whom the other two were girls. Since he lost his father two years later, there was obviously no question of receiving parental guidance in even the rudiments of art. Indeed, no sooner had he finished his formal education at University College School than, at the age of fifteen, he was sent to work for a tea merchant in the City. Possibly money was short, or perhaps the fact that the family and always been involved in commerce made this seem a natural course. At all events, the boy was determined to follow his father's profession. He attended evening classes at South Kensington and Heatherley's, and in 1874, at the age of twenty-one, he left his job and entered the Royal Academy Schools. He was to remain an RA student for five years, winning a œ10 premium for the best drawing done in the Life School in 1878, and in 1879 narrowly losing the Gold Medal for Painting to Henry La Thangue. Meanwhile, like so many young artists at this date, including his exact contemporary Frank Dicksee, he was finding employment as an illustrator with the prolific publishers, Cassell's. He began to exhibit the same year that he became a probationer in the RA Schools, sending a picture called An Answer Required to the Society of British Artists in Suffolk Street, modestly priced at 10 guineas. Four years later he had two pictures accepted by the Royal Academy, A Flaw in the Title, already mentioned as at Royal Holloway College, and Witness my Act and Seal, which was sold in these Rooms on 29 March 1996, lot 108. Seventeenth and eighteenth-century genre scenes with legal connotations, they were clearly the work of an ambitious young artist eager to show his mantle. Their careful finish betrayed an anxiety to forestall criticism, and in fact they were well received. The Times admired the way in which the artist had avoided the 'besetting fault' of so many genre paintings, 'too strong a smack of the stage,' while the Illustrated London News observed that although 'the faces [were] limned with well-nigh Holbein-like minuteness, and the details of furniture and drapery [were] all handled with exact care,... the general effect...[was], nevertheless, broad and powerful.' A Flaw in the Title was bought by Thomas Taylor, a wealthy cotton manufacturer, and entered Thomas Holloway's collection when Taylor's pictures were sold at Christie's in 1883. Blair Leighton's debut at the Royal Academy occurred the same year that Frederic Leighton became President, and it is possible that he emphasised his second forename, making it almost part of his surname, to avoid confusion with his famous but totally unrelated namesake. He identified closely with the RA, and maintained an unbroken record of exhibiting there for forty-two years (1878-1920). He continued to show occasionally at Suffolk Street until 1883, and towards the end of his life he became a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours. Otherwise his loyalty to the RA seems to have been complete. He certainly never supported the Grosvenor or New Galleries, which represented a seemingly more advanced and liberal alternative. Given this loyalty, it is curious that the Academy failed to make Blair Leighton an associate, let alone a full member. As early as 1900 the Art Journal was hinting that it was only a matter of time before these honours materialised, but they never did. The contrast with Dicksee, who was already an ARA by 1881 and ended his career as President, is striking. It is true that parallel cases of neglect exist. The somewhat younger academic history painter Herbert Draper was likewise never welcomed into the RA fold. But at least Draper had a picture bought for the Chantrey Bequest, the well-known Lament for Icarus of 1898 (Tate Gallery). Blair Leighton failed to receive this accolade, even though, from today's perspective, his work seems almost the embodiment of Chantrey taste. Perhaps he was simply uninterested in scaling the academic heights. Certainly he chose not to live in one of the enclaves of RA painters, such as Holland Park or St John's Wood, preferring the more radical yet easygoing neighbourhood of Bedford Park. This garden suburb between Chiswick and Acton had sprung up in the late 1870s, largely to designs by Norman Shaw. A revolutionary concept in domestic architecture and suburban planning, it epitomised the so-called 'Queen Anne' taste and was a showcase for the artistic, moral and social priorities of the Aesthetic movement. As Mark Girouard, its historian, has written, 'light gushed out of it, its sweetness was almost overpowering... A 'Queen Anne' church, a 'Queen Anne' art-school, shop, club and inn, and nearly five-hundred 'Queen Anne' houses were set amid green fields and along tree-lined avenues. Almost every house was equipped with a suitably progressive or artistic family. Children in Kate Greenaway clothes bowled their hoops along the street on their way to co-educational school. Fashionable ladies rode out from the West End to stare at all these odd people; parties of architectural students came on pilgrimages...' ( Sweetness and Light; The Queen Anne Movement: 1860-1900, London, 1977, p. 160). Blair Leighton was among the first settlers, and lived to be one of the area's most senior inhabitants. Having bought 20 Queen Anne's Grove (the name, of course, is significant) in 1881, he moved to 7 Priory Road in 1889, and finally, in 1902, to 14 Priory Road, where he died twenty years later. In 1885 he married Katharine Nash; they had two children, a son, J.E. Blair Leighton, who also became an artist, and a daughter. Whether these were among the hoop-bowling infants who attended the local co-educational school, it is clear from photographs of Blair Leighton's house and studio that the family's domestic surroundings were conventionally 'aesthetic', cluttered with what the author of the 1900 article described as 'quite a collection of old furniture, arms, metal-work, pottery, and other unique relics of the past.' Blair Leighton took sufficient pride in his collection to mention it in his Who's Who entry. Formed partly as an aid to his elaborate reconstructions of historical events, it was no doubt larger than most. Yet interiors crowded with picturesque bric-…-brac were not unusual in the homes of Bedford Park's 'artistic', 'progressive', or sometimes just 'odd', inhabitants. Blair Leighton's neighbours included T.M. Rooke, Burne-Jones's studio assitant and a prot‚g‚ of Ruskin; W.B. Yeats and his family, both his father and brother being artists; the Arts and Crafts architect C.F.A. Voysey; the dramatist Arthur Pinero and the actor William Terriss; Frederick York Powell, socialist, Icelandic scholar, and Professor of Modern History at Oxford; Sydney Cockerell, secretary to William Morris's Kelmscott Press and later a distinguished director of the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge; the 'advanced' American clergyman Moncure Conway; Canon J.W. Horsley, the chaplain of Clerkenwell prison, who devoted himself to the reclamation of burglars; C.S. Loch, secretary to the Charity Organisation Society; the Fenian revolutionary John O'Leary; and the Russian anarchist Sergius Stepniac, who was killed by a train in 1895 when he absentmindedly strayed onto a level-crossing. Blair Leighton seems to have played his part in this lively community. According to the 1913 Art Annual, he was 'an authority on [the area's] history, ancient and modern', and when his funeral took place at Bedford Park church, St Michael and All Angels, on 4 September 1922, it was attended by at least three other artists who lived locally: J.C. Dollman, who, like Blair Leighton himself, specialised in historical genre and showed regularly at the RA, the popular landscape painter Harry Sutton Palmer, and James Clark. Frank Dicksee was also among the mourners, and the RA sent a wreath. Blair Leighton never abandoned the pictorial territory he had staked out at the beginning of his career. This was more remarkable than it might seem since historical and literary subjects, so popular during the middle decades of the century, became increasingly less fashionable as impressionism and other forms of French realism strengthened their hold on British taste in the 1880s and '90s. Burne-Jones, who died in 1898, was vividly aware of this development, observing stoically in his declining years that 'the rage for me is over'; and many younger artists who had begun their careers in the same tradition turned to portraiture and other more profitable areas in later life. J.W. Waterhouse and Frank Dicksee are typical examples. Blair Leighton may not have followed this course, but he did tailor his historical subjects to popular taste. Like Alma-Tadema, whose figures are sometimes characterised as 'Victorians in togas,' he tended to choose sentimental and anecdotal subjects in which his audience could see a reflection of their own everyday hopes, fears, woes and aspirations. As the author of the Art Annual put it, 'as often as not he has painted contemporary life, but it has always been under the guise of the past.' The most familiar of these costume pieces are those set in the late eighteenth century or the Regency period - The Question (1892). Next-Door Neighbours (1894), In 1816 (1895), A Summer Shower (1896), A Favour (1898), and many more. They are comparable to the work of Marcus Stone, the leading exponent of star-crossed Regency lovers, although the 'Queen Anne' ethos of Bedford Park is also relevant. But there was more to Blair Leighton than this. He explored many other historical periods, and his work sometimes has an intensity which may surprise those who only know his essays in easy viewing. The two early legal subjects, each rather sombre in mood, have already been noted. They were followed two years later by The Dying Copernicus, and in 1884 by a possibly harrowing Roman subject, The Gladiator's Wife, and an account of one of the most famous (and ill-fated) medieval love-stories, Abelard and his pupil Heloise . The Secret and The Confessional (1885-6) were historical psychodramas in the manner of John Pettie or Seymour Lucas. Romola (1887) illustrated George Eliot's novel set in Renaissance Florence, and To Arms! (1888), in which a youth leaving a church with his bride on his arm is confronted by an armed knight demanding that he immediately enlist, is set in Lutheran Germany. Lady Godiva (1892) examined the famous legend from a new angle, focusing not on the heroine riding naked through the streets of Coventry but the tense encounter between her and her husband which led to her noble action. Melodrama pure and imsple was the object of In Nomine Christi (1896). A group of nuns give refuge to one elderly Jew while the mother superior repels his pursuers by brandishing a cross. In the late 1890s Blair Leighton's work took on a more poetical and even symbolist tinge. A King and a Beggar Maid (1898) looked again at a theme popularised by Tennyson and Burne-Jones. Elaine (1899) was also Tennysonian, illustrating a subject from the Idylls of the King which inspired an astonishing number of Victorian artists, not to mention the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron. Blair Leighton continued to explore the Arthuriad in Tristram and Isolde (1907), this time choosing a story to which Swinburne and Wagner had given memorable form; while Pell‚as and M‚lisande (1910) kept up the symbolist reference, in this case evoking thoughts of Maeterlinck and Debussy. Ultimately, however, this was a passing phase. Perhaps because symbolism itself was losing its hold on popular imagination, or perhaps because it was not Blair Leighton's natural territory, he was soon returning to more literal historical themes. The Boyhood of Alfred the Great (1913), Crusaders (1918), and Evicted (1919), an imaginary scene from the suppression of the English monasteries in 1536, were all among his last exhibits at the Royal Academy. God Speed, which appeared at the RA in 1900, shows a young woman binding an embroidered sleeve on the arm of her knight as he departs, horsed, fully armed, and bearing a lance decorated with a pennant, for the tournament. Other knights have already passed beneath the portcullis and are entering the field of battle. The picture was the first of several painted by Blair Leighton in the 1900s in which a knight and his lady are seen in incidents illustrative of the code of chivalry; The Accolade (Fig.2) followed in 1901, and The Dedication in 1908. The arms and armour which feature in all these pictures were no doubt in the artist's own collection, which is known to have included many examples. Although not specifically Arthurian in subject matter, these pictures represent a late phase of the Victorian revival of interest in the national legend. Pictorially, they have many antecedents. Perhaps the most obvious are William Dyce's nurals in the Queen's Robing Room in the House of Lords, in which the artist used incidents from the Arthurian stories to embody such abstract concepts as religion, chivalry, generosity and mercy, and the chivalric subjects that Rossetti and his followers were so fond of in the late 1850s. Blair Leighton's approach, of course, was much more academic, and may owe something to a picture such as John Pettie's The Vigil (Tate Gallery), bought for the Chantrey Bequest in 1884. As for his literary source, this is not so much Malory's Morte d'Arthur itself as Malory seen, in the words of the Art Annual, 'through the interpretation of Tennyson.' Nor is this surprising since in the Idylls of the King Tennyson adopted an approach analogous to that of Alma-Tadema or Blair Leighton, deliberately casting the stories in terms which encouraged his audience to identify with the protagonists. It was Swinburne who wickedly called the poem 'the Morte d'Albert, or Idylls of the Prince Consort', and many of the Laureate's more sophisticated readers had their doubts about the way his work was developing. With the public, however, the Idylls were an enormous success. Written over many years, they were all in print by 1872 with the exception of 'Balin and Balan,' which followed in 1885. The Victorians' tendency to use history as a mirror for their own preoccupations was often thrown into higher relief by current events, and never was this more the case than in 1900. The Boer War was raging, and the Royal Academy was full of its reflections, not only A.S. Cope's full-length portrait of Lord Kitchener but subject pictures such as John Bacon's Ordered South (young officer in khaki takes leave of wife and child). George Harcourt's Good-Bye! (more heart-rending partings, this time as the Grenadier Guards leave Waterloo Station), G.D. Leslie's In Time of War (young widow mourns in a poignantly beautiful garden) or David Farquharson's War News (fisherfolk reading a newspaper). These, however, by no means exhausted the references to the war, which were often cast in historical form. Marcus Stone's A Soldier's Return re-trod his familiar Regency ground, while Seymour Lucas's ' I could not love thee, dear, so much,/Loved I not honour more ' showed a young seventeenth-century soldier writing to his sweetheart from the front, using the top of his drum as a makeshift desk. Most numerous of all were the medieval parallels. Briton Riviere's St George, Sigismund Goetze's Dream of the Knight Errant, W. Onslow Ford's Joan of Arc, Solomon J. Solomon's Equipped (knight being armed by kneeling page) and Frank Dicksee's The Two Crowns (knightly hero catches glimpse of a crucifix as he returns in triumph) - all these gain resonance from the events in South Africa and seem to embody some aspect of the complex emtions that the war evoked at home. Blair Leighton's God Speed is clearly another example of this genre. It is, in effect, a medievalist version of Harcourt's Good-Bye! or Bacon's Ordered South, and perhaps spoke all the more potently to its audience precisely because it cloaked 'contemporary life...under the guise of the past.' Historical and literary subject matter may have been losing ground to realism, but they still retained an extraordinary hold on popular imagination, especially when powerful emotions were involved or the artist was required to distance reality and allow space for self-delusion. Dicksee's Two Crown was, after all, voted 'the best picture' in the exhibition by readers of the Daily News, and bought for the Chantrey Bequest for the then considerable sum of œ2,000. Fig.1 Edmund Blair Leighton Fig.2 Edmund Blair Leighton The Accolade (Private Collection).

Description:
WILLIAM MORRIS (1834-1896) SIGNED HANDWRITTEN LETTER English textile designer associated with the English Arts and Crafts Movement. Morris was also a poet and translator and a founder of the Socialist League in 1884. In this handwritten 1878 letter Morris declines an invitation to dinner.

Description:
[Venice, c.1420] 272 x 205mm. 168 + ii leaves: 1-2 1 0, 3 9(of 10, v cancelled blank), 4-8 1 0, 9 8, 10 1 0, 11 8, 12-16 1 0, 17 7, 18 5, 19 1 (of 2, lacking ii), catchwords in centre lower margin of most final versos, two columns of up to 37 lines of very variable script in two sizes, the commentary written in a small semi-cursive bookhand moving from gothic to humanistic and the sections of the Apocalypse in a script of two-lines height, all between four verticals and 38 horizontals ruled in ink, justification: 177 x 124mm, rubrics and paragraph marks in red, one- to three-line initials alternately of red and blue with flourishing of lilac and red, FIFTY-TWO LARGE ILLUMINATED INITIALS of two styles both with staves of pink and infills of blue containing green, red and yellow foliate shapes, all against grounds of burnished gold and with sprays, penwork tendrils and golden disks into the margin, HISTORIATED INITIAL accompanied by three-sided border of similar forms, TITLEPAGE MINIATURE in colours and liquid gold and FRONTISPIECE MINIATURE with evangelists' symbols and prophets in six medallions in brown ink and yellow wash (small pigment losses to titlepage miniature, a few spots and smudges in margins, dampstain in lower outer corner of final 65 leaves, four wormholes in final leaves). Brown panelled morocco by J. Leighton tooled in blind (extremities scuffed). A FASCINATING EXAMPLE OF CROSS-CULTURAL INFLUENCE IN A MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPT OWNED BY WILLIAM MORRIS PROVENANCE: 1. The style of the illumination suggests that the manuscript was made in Venice. 2. Convent of San Pietro, Padua: a note dated 1700 by Isabella Papafava, nun of the convent recording the discovery of the volume in the possession of an 'antichissima religiosa' and her rescue of it. 3. William Morris (1834-1896), Kelmscott House, Hammersmith: his bookplate inside front cover 4. Leo S. Olschki 1937 CONTENT: Federigo da Venezia: Commentary on the Apocalypse, lacking final few lines ff.2-168v; St Augustine: In Johannis evangelium tractatus, cxxiv (Migne 35, 1386), folded folio from a 12th-century Italian manuscript as two final endleaves Federigo de Rinaldo, usually known as Federigo da Venezia, moved between the convents of northern Italy. A Dominican who matriculated as a doctor of theology at Bologna around 1380, he taught both in that city and at Padua, where, in 1389, he was granted licence to send two of the order to Venice whenever he wished. Later that year he was ordered to return to the convent in Venice all the books that he had borrowed from it or, otherwise, to make restitution. In 1393 he delivered the oration at the funeral of Francesco I da Carrara, Lord of Padua -- he was described as 'distinguished in doctrine and eloquence' --and his commentary on the Apocalypse is believed to have been completed around this time on the command of Francesco II. He returned to Bologna as inquisitor in 1395 but in February 1398 he was again in Padua and was elected Priore della provincia di Lombardia inferiore in 1401. His commentary was primarily concerned with examining the text and grammar of the Apocalypse -- regarding it as the only book of the Bible of which Christ was the author, with St John merely acting as the scribe. Written in a literary version of Venetian dialect Federigo's commentary was 'one of the very first biblical commentaries composed directly in an Italian tongue': A. Luttrell, 'Federigo da Venezia's Commentary on the Apocalypse 1393/4', Journal of the Walters Art Gallery', xxvii-xxviii (1964-5), pp.57-65. In both the early printed edition and some manuscripts, including the present example, it was mistakenly identified as merely a translation of Nicolas de Lyra. As it was copied during the 15th century the text gradually became Tuscanised. Luttrell identified 16 Italian manuscripts of the text, including this one ('untraced') and one destroyed, and Gargan added a further two, again one of them lost: L. Gargan, Lo studio teologico e la biblioteca dei domenicani a Padova nel Tre e Quattrocento (1971). Two of the earlier copies are of particular interest in relation to the present manuscript: Walters Art Gallery W.335 and Paris, BnF, Ms ital.86. Although neither of these exactly duplicates the text and illustration of our manuscript -- the text is closer to ital.86, which is unillustrated -- they do explain its appearance and genesis. Both of these manuscripts were copied in Candia, the chief town of the Venetian colony of Crete, W.335 in 1415 and ital.86 in 1409. They were clearly not the only examples made on the island; a literal translation into Greek was also made at around the same time, leading Luttrell to claim 'The work of an obscure friar thus took a minor place among the important series of translations...through which Byzantine theologians acquired a knowledge of Roman theology. This process helped to produce that measure of understanding which made possible the serious attempt to secure the reunion of the churches which took place at the council of Florence a few decades after Federigo's death'. It is clear from a comparison with the illustration on f.2v of the Walters manuscript, showing the Evangelist having fallen to the ground on seeing the Son of Man between seven candlesticks, holding seven stars, with a sword in his mouth, that it was just such an illustration that served as the model for the frontispiece of the Foyle manuscript. The use of a manuscript produced in Crete as an exemplum would also account for the form of the display script on both the frontispiece and opening folio of the present manuscript. In contrast, the ink and wash frontispiece on the verso, with roundels containing the symbols of the Evangelists and the heads of two prophets, appears to depend upon an earlier northern European model. The illuminated initials and borders are more straightforwardly Venetian. The decorative vocabulary and technique of the borders up to folio 36v is that of manuscripts produced in the workshop of Cristoforo Cortese at this date, for example the Promissione of Doge Francesco Foscari of 1422: Miniature a Brera 1100-1422, ex. cat.1997. eds M. Boskovits, G. Valagussa & M. Bollati, p.239. Clearly the manuscript was not completed in a single campaign and the refined and richly coloured initials from f.42 on are the work of a north Italian illuminator of around 1470.

Description:
BEACH SCENE WITH GRAZIA watercolor on paper 10 by 13 1/4 in. Executed circa 1914 Antonio Barone was born in Northern Italy and emigrated to Le Roy, New York, with his family in 1896. He studied with Ida Taylor, a professional artist who had worked with William Morris Hunt, and trained in Paris with Bouguereau and Boulanger. In 1906, he enrolled at the Art Student's League in New York to study with Frank Dumond, William Merritt Chase and F. Luis Mora. He became a portraitist and was influenced not only by the old masters, but by the work of James McNeill Whistler as well. In 1910 he travelled to Europe and returned to open a studio in New York. An accomplished academic painter in oils, he began working in watercolor and pastels, finding his subjects on the streets of Little Italy. In the 1920's he began working as a muralist, both in private homes and public and governmental settings. The subject of the present watercolor is Barone's first wife Grazia, whom he met at Alfred Stieglitz's and married in 1914. According to Ronald G. Pisano: "From this point on, the lovely Grazia became Barone's frequent and favorite model, posing in various elegant gowns - standing, seated, reclining. She appears in delightfully impressionistic beach scenes painted in watercolor as well as major full length portraits. Included in this series are two of Barone's most beautiful and most widely celebrated paintings, Grazia Reclining with Lilies and Grazia in Black. The first, painted in 1914, was included in Barone's exhibitions at the Gillis Gallery in Rochester in 1915, the Albright Gallery in Buffalo in 1916 and the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C. in 1919 under the title The Fourth Muse. Grazia in Black was also widely exhibited, and shortly after it was painted served as the cover illustration for the March, 1918 issue of Town and Country. Both works epitomize the image of the genteel American woman - classic beauty combined with refined taste - the image most upper class American women aspired to." (v.i. Antonio Barone, American: 1889-1971, 1985) Provenance: Mrs. Alva Barone, the artist's second wife Grand Central Art Galleries, Inc. Exhibited: Southampton, New York, Parrish Art Museum, The Long Island Landscape, June-August, 1982, no. 2 Barridoff Galleries, Portland, Maine, Antonio Barone, American: 1889-1971, August, 1985 Denver, Colorado, The Denver Art Museum; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; Brooklyn, New York, The Brooklyn Museum; Fort Worth, Texas, The Amon Carter Museum; Richmond, Virginia, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; Washington, D.C., The Corcoran Gallery of Art; Birmingham, Alabama, Birmingham Museum of Art; Indinapolis, Indiana, Indianapolis Museum of Art; Baltimore, Maryland, Walters Art Gallery; Tokyo, Japan, The Shoto Art Museum (and travelling), Contemplating the American Watercolor: Selections from the Transco Energy Company Collection, Houston, Texas, May, 1985-April, 1992, pl. 58, illus.

Description:
BEACH SCENE WITH GRAZIA watercolor on paper 10 by 13 1/4 in. Executed circa 1914 Antonio Barone was born in Northern Italy and emigrated to Le Roy, New York, with his family in 1896. He studied with Ida Taylor, a professional artist who had worked with William Morris Hunt, and trained in Paris with Bouguereau and Boulanger. In 1906, he enrolled at the Art Student's League in New York to study with Frank Dumond, William Merritt Chase and F. Luis Mora. He became a portraitist and was influenced not only by the old masters, but by the work of James McNeill Whistler as well. In 1910 he travelled to Europe and returned to open a studio in New York. An accomplished academic painter in oils, he began working in watercolor and pastels, finding his subjects on the streets of Little Italy. In the 1920's he began working as a muralist, both in private homes and public and governmental settings. The subject of the present watercolor is Barone's first wife Grazia, whom he met at Alfred Stieglitz's and married in 1914. According to Ronald G. Pisano: "From this point on, the lovely Grazia became Barone's frequent and favorite model, posing in various elegant gowns - standing, seated, reclining. She appears in delightfully impressionistic beach scenes painted in watercolor as well as major full length portraits. Included in this series are two of Barone's most beautiful and most widely celebrated paintings, Grazia Reclining with Lilies and Grazia in Black. The first, painted in 1914, was included in Barone's exhibitions at the Gillis Gallery in Rochester in 1915, the Albright Gallery in Buffalo in 1916 and the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C. in 1919 under the title The Fourth Muse. Grazia in Black was also widely exhibited, and shortly after it was painted served as the cover illustration for the March, 1918 issue of Town and Country. Both works epitomize the image of the genteel American woman - classic beauty combined with refined taste - the image most upper class American women aspired to." (v.i. Antonio Barone, American: 1889-1971, 1985) Provenance: Mrs. Alva Barone, the artist's second wife Grand Central Art Galleries, Inc. Exhibited: Southampton, New York, Parrish Art Museum, The Long Island Landscape, June-August, 1982, no. 2 Barridoff Galleries, Portland, Maine, Antonio Barone, American: 1889-1971, August, 1985 Denver, Colorado, The Denver Art Museum; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; Brooklyn, New York, The Brooklyn Museum; Fort Worth, Texas, The Amon Carter Museum; Richmond, Virginia, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; Washington, D.C., The Corcoran Gallery of Art; Birmingham, Alabama, Birmingham Museum of Art; Indinapolis, Indiana, Indianapolis Museum of Art; Baltimore, Maryland, Walters Art Gallery; Tokyo, Japan, The Shoto Art Museum (and travelling), Contemplating the American Watercolor: Selections from the Transco Energy Company Collection, Houston, Texas, May, 1985-April, 1992, pl. 58, illus.

Description:
outline frames in pencil for 3 further drawings, 1 partly filled in with faint preparatory sketch, all the frames captioned in ink. 228 x 155 mm, hinged to mats in cloth folder; 1/4 morocco slipcase. Np, mid-1890s? William Morris's plans for a Kelmscott Press edition of the Bible remained unrealized at his death in 1896.

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ABBEY, CIRCA 1881-2 Scrolled acanthus leaves and flowers in shades of beige, green and blue against a deep blue ground, red ground border with formalised floral design, original fringes 267 1/8 by 162 5/8 in. (678.1 by 441 cm.) EXHIBITED William Morris, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1996, Cat. No. M. 107 LITERATURE Linda Parry, William Morris Textiles, London, 1983, p. 137/8 Linda Parry, (ed.), William Morris, Victoria and Albert Museum exhibition catalogue, 1996, p. 282 Rounton Grange, Northallerton, Yorkshire was designed by Philip Webb in 1872 for Sir Isaac Lowthian and Lady Bell. Apart from the present carpet, the interior of Rounton Grange also included a frieze designed by Morris and Burne Jones which was placed in the dining room. Linda Parry (op.cit.), on the basis of recollections by May Morris, suggests that the carpet was also originally in this room. A later (1896) photograph of the drawing room at Rounton Grange, (reproduced above) shows the carpet now placed in that interior. The present carpet was one of the first commissions to be woven on the large Merton Abbey looms after the relocation of the Morris & Co. works from Hammersmith in 1881. We would like to acknowledge the extensive research of Linda Parry which has assisted in the preparation of this catalogue entry.

Description:
Membership card for the "Socialist League. Hammersmith Branch," front cover printed in sanguine on yellow surfaced card with design after Walter Crane, and signed by both Emery Walker as Branch Secretary and William Morris as Treasurer, the two inside pages printed with space for members's name and date, and with columns for subscriptions paid in each month of the year -- unused, rear cover blank, 6 x 4.1/2in when folded. (4) PROVENANCE Included as item 93 in Bernard Quaritch's Catalogue no. 926, 1973. According to the catalogue description, "It was from this example that H. Buxton Forman took the reproduction on p. 122 of The Books of William Morris, and it was found loosely inserted in the copy of that book which he gave his son Maurice on 4 December 1897." Latterly in the D. G. Bridson collection. NOTES In The Books of William Morris (p. 122), Buxton Forman says of the Hammersmith Branch: "The Branch was conducted, as might be supposed, not without regard to the adornments of life. The card of membership, a folding card measuring 6 inches by 4.1/2, bears a charming design by Mr. Crane; and those who have their cards still may please themselves with the thought that they possess, with the poet's autograph, if not a positive portrait of him in the punning character of a smith hammering, at least a stalwart man with a handsome face intentionally of the Morris type.".

Description:
Autograph letter signed, August 3rd, [1888], two pages, to a Mr. Crane, comments made concerning a paper to be read to The Art Congress later that year by Morris and commenting on some current political theory, framed with an early platinum sepia photo of Morris's portrait by Jackson, (folds).

Description:
paper, printed in red and black, 4 wood-engraved illustrations by W.H. Hooper after Edward Burne-Jones, ornamental woodcut captions to illustrations, borders and initials, original limp vellum, slightly soiled, silk ties, uncut, [Peterson A39], large 4to (286 by 204mm.), 1896. paper, printed in red and black, 4 wood-engraved illustrations by W.H. Hooper after Edward Burne-Jones, ornamental woodcut captions to illustrations, borders and initials, original limp vellum, slightly soiled, silk ties, uncut, [Peterson A39], large 4to (286 by 204mm.), 1896 This work was longer in production than any other Kelmscott book. William Morris initially approached Arthur Gaskin in 1893 for the illustrations, but was not impressed with the nineteen finally submitted. He eventually turned once more to Sir Edward Burne-Jones.

Description:
The Last Valley--Paradise Rocks oil on canvas 323/4 x 421/4 in. (83.2 x 107.4 cm. PROVENANCE The artist. Sale: Boston, Massachusetts, Pierce and Company, The Paintings of Mr. John La Farge, 19-20 November, 1878, lot 18. Alexander Agassiz, Newport, Rhode Island, acquired from the above. By descent in the family to the present owners. LITERATURE "National Academy of Design: First Notice," New York Evening Post, 27 April 1870, p. 1 E. Benson, "The Annual Exhibition of the Academy," Putnam's Magazine, June 1870, pp. 704-705 "National Academy of Design: Third Notice," New York Evening Post, 10 June 1870, p. 1 H. James, "Art," Atlantic Monthly, January 1872, p. 117 "The Works of American Artists in the Salon of 1874," New York Evening Post, 17 June 1874, p. 1 S.N. Carter, "Art at the Exhibition," Appleton's Journal, 3 June 1876, p. 726 "Local Matters," Newport Mercury, 4 November 1876, p. 2 F.A. Walker, ed., International Exposition, 1876: Reports and Awards Group XXVII, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1877, p. 113 "Fine Arts: The Society of American Artists," New York Evening Mail, 5 March 1878, p. 4 "Old and Young Painters," New York Times, 17 March 1878, p. 5 S.N. Carter, "First Exhibition of the American Art Association," Art Journal (New York), April 1878, p. 125 "La Farge Paintings," New York World, 19 November 1878, p. 5 "Art and Artists," Boston Evening Transcript, 21 November 1878, p. 6 "Sale of Mr. La Farge's Paintings," Boston Daily Advertiser, 21 November 1878, p. 2 "The La Farge Collection," Boston Globe, 21 November 1878, p. 4 "The La Farge Paintings," Boston Post, 22 November 1878, p. 3 C.E. Clement and L. Hutton, Artists of the Nineteenth Century and Their Works, Boston, Massachusetts, 1879, p. 30 A.B. Dodd, "John La Farge," Art Journal (London), September 1885, pp. 261-262 J.D. Champlin Jr. and C.C. Perkins, Cyclopedia of Painters and Paintings, New York, 1887, p. 4, illustrated J.G. Wilson and J. Fiske, ed., Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, New York, 1887-1889, p. 586, illustrated C. Waern, "John La Farge, Artist and Writer," Portfolio (London), April 1896, p. 27 R. Johnson and J.H. Brown, ed., The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Boston, Massachusetts, 1904, n.p. R. Cortissoz, John La Farge, A Memoir and a Study, Boston, Massachusetts and New York, 1911, p. 186 Michigan State Library, Biographical Sketches of American Artists, Lansing, Michigan, 1912, p. 102 E.H. Browne, "Wizard of the Window," Columbia, March 1935, p. 19 W. Preston, American Biographies, New York and London, 1940, p. 587 H.A. La Farge, "John La Farge: A Reappraisal," Art News, May 1966, p. 58 B. Novak, American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, New York, 1969, p. 256, illustrated E. Scheyer, The Circle of Henry Adams: Art and Artists, Detroit, Michigan, 1970, p. 189 H. Adams, "Letter to the Editor," Art Bulletin, December 1974, p. 332 H. Adams, "The Stained Glass of John La Farge," American Art Review, July-August 1975, pp. 59-62, illustrated H.B. Weinberg, The Decorative Work of John La Farge, New York, 1977, p. 35, illustrated R. Berenson, "John La Farge: America's Old Master," Art and Antiques, May-June 1982, p. 48, illustrated J.L. Yarnall, "John La Farge's New England Pasture Land," Newport History, Summer 1982, p. 83, illlustrated J.L. Yarnall, "John La Farge's The Last Valley," Newport History, Fall 1982, pp. 131-140, illustrated H.A. La Farge, "John La Farge and the 1878 Auction of his Works," American Art Journal, Summer 1983, pp. 19-22, illustrated D. Tatham, "Elihu Vedder's Lair of the Sea Serpent," American Art Journal, Spring 1985, pp. 37-38, illustrated H. Adams, "The Mind of John La Farge," in John La Farge, New York, 1987, p. 29 K.A. Foster, "John La Farge and the American Watercolor Movement: Art for the 'Decorative Age'," in John La Farge, New York, 1987, p. 133 J.L. Yarnall, "Nature and Art in the Painting of John La Farge," in John La Farge, New York, 1987, pp. 89-92, illustrated American Paradise: The Art of the Hudson River School, New York, 1987, pp. 79-81, illustrated G.P. Weisberg, "On the Art and Exhibition of John La Farge," Arts Magazine, October 1987, p. 34 W.H. Gerdts, Art Across America: Two Centuries of Regional Painting 1710-1920, New York, 1990, p. 91 J.L. Yarnall, John La Farge: Watercolors and Drawings, New York, 1990, p. 31 L.M. Fink, American Art at the Nineteenth Century Paris Salons, London, 1990, pp. 230-231, 264, illustrated J.L. Yarnall, John La Farge in Paradise: The Painter and His Muse, Newport, Rhode Island, 1995, pp. 115-120, illustrated J. Pantalone, "Master and His Muse," Newport This Week, 6 April 1995, p. 12, illustrated R.E. Reimer, "Newport Gallery Exhibits Artist John La Farge's Work," Newport Daily News, 7 April 1995, p. C3 B. Van Siclen, "Scenes from Paradise," Providence Journal-Bulletin, 21 April 1995, pp. D1, D8, illustrated Antiques, May 1995, exhibition advertisement, p. 655, illustrated EXHIBITION Brooklyn, New York, Brooklyn Art Association, Catalogue of Pictures Exhibited at the Fall Exhibition, December 1869, no. 233 New York, National Academy of Design, Catalogue of the First Summer Exhibition, 1870, no. 354 New Haven, Connecticut, Yale School of the Fine Arts, Third Annual Exhibition of the Yale School of the Fine Arts, 1871, no. 86 Boston, Massachusetts, Doll and Richards, January 1872 London, England, Society of French Artists, Seventh Exhibition of the Society of French Artists, 1873, no. 18 Paris, France, Societ‚ Nationale des Artistes Fran‡ais, Explication des Ouvrages de Peinture, Sculpture, Architecture, Gravure et Lithographie des Artistes Vivants, Expos‚s au Palais de Champs-Elysees, May 1874, no. 1039 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Centennial Exposition, Art Gallery, Annexes of Out-Door Works of Art, 1876, no. 5 New York, Society of American Artists, Catalogue of the First Exhibition, Society of American Artists at Kurtz gallery, March-April 1878, no. 6 New York, Graham Gallery, John La Farge, May-June 1996, no. 21 Newport, Rhode Island, William Vareika Fine Arts, John La Farge in Paradise: The Painter and His Muse, March-May 1995, no. 10, pp. 115-120, illustrated NOTES Long considered one of America's most complex and innovative artists, John La Farge produced important work in a variety of mediums, especially in oils, watercolors, and stained glass. His career is distinguished by many successes, among them a pair of large landscapes which includes The Last Valley--Paradise Rocks, and its pendant work, Paradise Valley (Terra Foundation for the Arts, Chicago, Illinois). Although he painted both works while still a young artist, they remain among the most impressive and ambitious easel paintings that he ever produced. In light of international developments in art of the time, the two paintings also anticipate later artistic developments, most notably in the direct painting of the Impressionists. Both also earned recongition in exhibitions at home and abroad. The Last Valley, in particular, toured extensively, appearing in Brooklyn, New York; New Haven, Connecticut; Boston, Massachusetts; London, England; Paris, France; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and New York. Just as La Farge worked outdoors when painting monumental canvases such as The Last Valley--Paradise Rocks, so too would the Impressionists develop their painting techniques using direct observation of light and atmosphere as seen across the landscape. Along with Paradise Valley, this painting, The Last Valley--Paradise Rocks stands as a precocious precursor of American landscape painting in the second half of the nineteenth century, and the canvas marks a high point of his career. As James Yarnall has recently noted, the events leading up to their creation are closely intertwined with the details of La Farge's life during his first years as an artist: "Until his father died in the summer of 1858, La Farge worked in a New York law firm. Suddenly enriched by a substantial inheritance, he enrolled the next spring in a studio at Newport, Rhode Island, to study with William Morris Hunt (1834-1879), a prize pupil of the French painter Thomas Couture (1815-1870). La Farge quickly grew disenchanted with Hunt's methods, but not before falling in love with a native Newporter of high social standing, Margaret Mason Perry (1839-1925), a granddaughter of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry. When they married in October of 1860 and settled in Newport, La Farge found himself personally fulfilled but professionally stranded. As a result, he dedicated himself to independent experimentation in the painting of still lifes and landscapes from nature." "In March of 1860, the La Farges purchased an expensive home in downtown Newport and began frequenting 'Paradise,' a nearby farming community in Middletown, Rhode Island, that soon became the focus of the artist's work. Their prosperous lifestyle, coupled with the birth of two children in quick succession, drained their finances. In the spring of 1864, the family fled their downtown Newport house under cover of night to escape creditors, beginning a decade marked by frugal and peripatetic living. Each spring, the family rented a different house at Paradise; each fall, they took over the downtown Newport residence of Margaret's mother, who wintered in her native Philadelphia." "In September of 1865, La Farge became seriously ill with lead poisoning and suffered hand paralysis. The following spring, as the paralysis lifted, he decided to produce a major canvas to use at exhibitions in advancing his stalled career." (J. Yarnall in Christie's, Important American Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture, May 23, 1996, p. 40). He began work on Paradise Valley in 1866, and commenced painting The Last Valley--Paradise Rocks the following year. Despite their large size, both were painted out of doors, using an approach La Farge had successfully adapted to smaller canvases also painted near his home in Newport. In these two larger canvases, writes James Yarnall, "he applied his principles of painting from nature while avoiding conventional formulas of picturesque composition. In these monumental works, the artist expanded the tenets of his modest program of sketching to the scale of ambitious easel painting, adapting the seemingly artless compositional formats and handling of his early studies. This approach made these pictures unusual for a time in which landscape painters typically sought out the dramatic and heroic aspects of nature and painted them according to established formulas. Although La Farge was simply following his own rigorous logic rather than attempting to be different, what he accomplished in these two works was thoroughly modern in nineteenth-century terms. Late in life, he was fond of discussing these paintings, and his analysis of them illuminates what he meant by 'copying nature' in realistic paintings." (J. Yarnall, et al, John La Farge, New York, 1987, p. 89) The artist's discussion of his approach to painting Paradise Valley, which he completed first, equally suits this painting The Last Valley--Paradise Rocks. "My programme was to paint from nature a portrait which was both novel and absolutely 'everydayish.' I therefore had to choose a special moment of the day and a special kind of weather at a special time of year when I could count on the effect being repeated. Hence, naturally, I painted just where I lived. I chose a number of difficulties in combination so as to test my acquaintance with them both in theory of color and light and in the practice of painting itself." ( John La Farge, p. 89) For the execution of The Last Valley--Paradise Rocks, La Farge set up an impromptu studio on a high vantage point on a ridge in the Paradise Hills overlooking Bishop Berkeley's Rock. The site was considerably more remote than his first, and was situated about a mile from his home. The more remote location occasioned another unexpected risk, when he found his hut had been vandalized and his picture partly damaged. Nonetheless he proceeded in a deliberate manner to complete The Last Valley . It was likewise "painted from nature," as remembered by the artist, "the same way as the other [ Paradise Valley ], and took a very long time to paint, so as to get the same light as possible. By going very frequently,--if necessary, everyday, and watching for a few minutes, I could occasionally get what I wanted." ( John La Farge, pp. 92, 241) The subtlety and changeable quality of the light out-of-doors provided a distinct challenge to the artist. It also saved him from what he considered the bland, north light of the typical artist's studio: "The closed light of the studio is more the same for everyone," he wrote, "and for all day, and its problems, however important, are extremely narrow compared with those of out of doors. There I wished to apply principles of light and color, to be as free from recipes as possible, and to indicate very carefully in every part, the exact time of day and circumstances of light." ( John La Farge, pp. 21, 25). As pointed out by James Yarnall, The Last Valley--Paradise Rocks also offered more dramatic topography than the first work, and an opportunity for the artist to create more elaborate light effects. "Whereas in painting Paradise Valley, La Farge had selected a bland topography with few linear and lighting contrasts, for The Last Valley--Paradise Rocks he deliberately chose a dramatic gorge viewed at sunset, a time of day when the dual ridges of the valley would be lit in opposition, the one illuminated with the brilliance of the setting sun, the other cloaked in dusk." ( John La Farge, p. 92) Both works were quietly innovative paintings that broke dramatically with the landscape traditions of La Farge's contemporaries. "From the very beginning," writes the art-historian Henry Adams, "La Farge very consciously avoided the bombast of the Hudson River School, which was reaching a climax at just this time in the huge panoramas of Albert Bierstadt and Frederic Church. La Farge deliberately chose scenes that were spare and unspectacular, which he painted with visible brushwork that freely discloses the artist's touch. Above all," he concludes, "La Farge avoided obvious formulas, choosing modest motifs and unusual vantage points and composing his paintings from color and light rather than outlines." ( John La Farge, pp. 21, 25). The Last Valley--Paradise Rocks contains little of traditional landscape subject matter; La Farge's vision was a more introspective one, offering a quietly subjective note--the artist relying on the forms of the landscape, and its subtle effects of light, to convey its meaning. With this novel approach, he produced a major landmark of nineteenth century American painting, and created a work both eclectic and original--"the kind of genial melding of convention and invention characteristic of La Farge's entire career." ( John La Farge, p. 41) The Last Valley--Paradise Rocks represents a culmination of La Farge's work. A young, ambitious, yet highly sensitive painter, La Farge would always regard the canvas as among his finest achievements. The painting is a summation of the great traditions of landscape painting in America during the first half of the nineteenth century. And at the same time The Last Valley--Paradise Rocks prefigures the progressive aesthetic developments that would come to define American painting during the late nineteenth century. The Last Valley--Paradise Rocks is a touchstone composition of American landscape painting--incorporating both tradition and innovation in a highly personal form of expression. This oil will be included in the forthcoming publication by Yale University Press of the late Heny La Farge's catalogue raisonn‚ of the works of John La Farge, completed by James L. Yarnall and Mary A. La Farge. SALESROOM NOTICE Please note the frame for this lot is an American Period, c. 1880's, gilded, and with applied ornament. It is on loan from Eli Wilner & Company, Inc. NYC and is available for purchase. Please inquire with the department.

Description:
in red, blue and black, ornamental woodcut borders and initials, original holland-backed boards, slightly soiled, uncut, [Peterson A42], 4to (290 by 108mm.), 1896. in red, blue and black, ornamental woodcut borders and initials, original holland-backed boards, slightly soiled, uncut, [Peterson A42], 4to (290 by 108mm.), 1896 Loosely inserted is a printed note from William Morris dated December 28th 1896 concerning an earlier edition of the poems which had been brought to his attention and the question of the authorship of the verses. This was the first of the Kelmscott Press books to be printed in three colours.

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John RUSKIN. Frondes Agrestes readings in 'Modern Painters' by John Ruskin Chosen at her pleasure by the author's friend the younger Lady of the Thwaite, Coniston... Fifty-Ninth Thousand. London: Ballantyne, Hanson & Co. for George Allen, 1906. Small 8o (14.9 x 9.8cm.). Limp sheep, spine and upper cover blocked in gilt, top edge gilt (extremities rubbed, small splits to joints). PROVENANCE: Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (1874-1922) (presentation inscription from his brother-in-law 'To/Ernest/With all good wishes for/success/from Arthur'), and thence by descent. The inscription is probably by Arthur Dorman, one of Lady Shackleton's three brothers. Judging from the date of the book and the sentiment of the inscription it was probably given to Shackleton shortly before the start of his British Antarctic Expedition of 1907-1909. [ With :] William MORRIS. The Earthly Paradise A poem by William Morris New edition. London, New York and Bombay: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1896. 8o (21 x 14.4cm.). Title vignette. Loosely inserted manuscript sheet at front. Red cloth, spine and upper cover blocked in gilt (upper cover slightly affected by damp). Provenance : Lady Shackleton (presentation inscription 'Miss E.M. Dorman/Nov. 27th. 1897' and with inserted sheet with calligraphic presentation address noting the gift of the book to Miss Dorman 'as a token of appreciation of her efforts in the Choir Class'), and thence by descent. (2).

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The Expulsion from Eden with inscription Ô..for Glass..Expulsion from Eden... ford madox brown Õ (on the frame) pencil and grey wash, on buff paper, in the original William Morris frame 38 ½ x 20 ¼ in. (97.8 x 51.4 cm.) Provenance: By descent in the family of the artist. Literature: H.C. Marillier, A Note on the Morris Stained Glass Works, 1920, illustrated facing p. 7. A.C. Sewter, The Stained Glass of William Morris and his Circle, Yale, 1975, vol. I, p. 131. Footnotes:The present drawing appears to be an autograph tracing of the cartoon for part of the apse window in Holy Trinity Church, Meole Brace, Shropshire, illustrated in F.M. Hueffer, Ford Madox Brown: A Record of his Life and Work, London, 1896, facing p. 183. Designed in 1869 and made by Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. in 1870, the window is illustrated in SewterÕs monograph, vol. I, pl. 309-11. BrownÕs cartoon for another section, The Sacrifice of Zacharias, was sold at ChristieÕs South Kensington on 15 October 1992, lot 8. He designed seven of the nine Old Testament subjects in the window, the other two being the work of Burne-Jones. We are grateful to Peter Cormack, F.S.A., Deputy Keeper of the William Morris Gallery, for his help in preparing this catalogue entry.

Description:
The Expulsion from Eden with inscription '..for Glass..Expulsion from Eden...FORD MADOX BROWN' (on the frame) pencil and grey wash, on buff paper, in the original William Morris frame 38 x 20 in. (97.8 x 51.4 cm.) PROVENANCE By descent in the family of the artist. LITERATURE H.C. Marillier, A Note on the Morris Stained Glass Works, 1920, illustrated facing p. 7. A.C. Sewter, The Stained Glass of William Morris and his Circle, Yale, 1975, vol. I, p. 131. NOTES The present drawing appears to be an autograph tracing of the cartoon for part of the apse window in Holy Trinity Church, Meole Brace, Shropshire, illustrated in F.M. Hueffer, Ford Madox Brown: A Record of his Life and Work, London, 1896, facing p. 183. Designed in 1869 and made by Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. in 1870, the window is illustrated in Sewter's monograph, vol. I, pl. 309-11. Brown's cartoon for another section, The Sacrifice of Zacharias, was sold at Christie's South Kensington on 15 October 1992, lot 8. He designed seven of the nine Old Testament subjects in the window, the other two being the work of Burne-Jones. We are grateful to Peter Cormack, F.S.A., Deputy Keeper of the William Morris Gallery, for his help in preparing this catalogue entry.

Description:
Saint Luke inscribed ÔThe property of the artist/Ford Madox Brown, copyright/for stained glass only granted/to the firm Morris Marshall/& Co July 23/69Õ (upper right) and further inscribed Ôtop of headÕ (upper left) and Ô lucas medicus delectvs Õ (on the halo) and Ô hippocrates Õ (on a book held by the saint), and further inscribed with colour notes. pencil, charcoal and grey wash, lower left corner made up 46 ½ x 19 ¾ in. (118.1 x 50.2 cm.) Literature: F.M. Hueffer, Ford Madox Brown: A Record of his Life and Work, London, 1896, p. 446. A.C. Sewter, The Stained Glass of William Morris and His Circle, Yale, 1974-5, vol. I, pl. 308, vol. II, pp. 108-9. Footnotes:The present drawing is the cartoon for the centre light of the 3-light south aisle east window in St LadocaÕs Church, Ladock, Cornwall. The light was designed in 1869 and the window was made by Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. in 1869-70. The cartoon was re-used susequently for a window in St LukeÕs Chapel, Royal National Hospital, Ventnor, Isle of Wight. We are grateful to Peter Cormack, F.S.A., Deputy Keeper of the William Morris Gallery, for his help in preparing this entry.

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Saint Luke inscribed 'The property of the artist/Ford Madox Brown, copyright/for stained glass only granted/to the firm Morris Marshall/& Co July 23/69' (upper right) and further inscribed 'top of head' (upper left) and 'LUCAS MEDICUS DELECTVS' (on the halo) and 'HIPPOCRATES' (on a book held by the saint), and further inscribed with colour notes. pencil, charcoal and grey wash, lower left corner made up 46 x 19 in. (118.1 x 50.2 cm.) LITERATURE F.M. Hueffer, Ford Madox Brown: A Record of his Life and Work, London, 1896, p. 446. A.C. Sewter, The Stained Glass of William Morris and His Circle, Yale, 1974-5, vol. I, pl. 308, vol. II, pp. 108-9. NOTES The present drawing is the cartoon for the centre light of the 3-light south aisle east window in St Ladoca's Church, Ladock, Cornwall. The light was designed in 1869 and the window was made by Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. in 1869-70. The cartoon was re-used susequently for a window in St Luke's Chapel, Royal National Hospital, Ventnor, Isle of Wight. We are grateful to Peter Cormack, F.S.A., Deputy Keeper of the William Morris Gallery, for his help in preparing this entry.

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250 on paper, printed in red and black, ornamental woodcut borders and initials, original limp vellum, silk ties, uncut, later slipcase, [Peterson A45], large 4to (287 by 203mm.), 1897. 250 on paper, printed in red and black, ornamental woodcut borders and initials, original limp vellum, silk ties, uncut, later slipcase, [Peterson A45], large 4to (287 by 203mm.), 1897 William Morris died on 3 October 1896 while working on the woodcut letters for this book. R. Catterson-Smith finished the designs for the words 'Empty' and 'Whilom'. It is not certain how much of the book Morris saw in final proof.

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The central suspended chest with reeded rectangular top above two short drawers and four long drawers, all with ceder lining, flanked to each side by a pedestal with central shell to the dome pediment, above a panelled door enclosing six shelves in total, on turned baluster feet, one foot replaced, four shelves later 613/4 in. (157 cm.) high; 92 in. (234 cm.) wide; 24 in. (61 cm.) deep PROVENANCE James Edward Backhouse J.P. (d.1897), Hurworth Grange, Co. Durham and by descent to his son-in-law Jonathan Edward Hodgkin J.P., (d. 1952) of Dryderdale Hall, co. Durham, and by descent to the present owner. NOTES Hurworth Grange was designed in 1873 for the banker, James Backhouse, of Messrs Backhouse and Co. Darlington, by Alfred Waterhouse (d. 1905), celebrated as the architect of London's Natural History Museum. It was largely furnished by William Morris (d. 1896). Backhouse's son-in-law, Jonathan Edward Hodgkin inherited the wardrobe in 1875 and it was moved to Dryderdale Hall, Co. Durham, also designed by Alfred Waterhouse. This wardrobe, displaying Venus-shell badges in arched and reed-enriched pediments, is designed in the early l9th Century French antique manner, and with its cupboard-flanked drawers relates to patterns for 'Ladies Dwarf Wardrobes' issued in George Smith's Collection of Designs for Household Furniture ' l808, pl. 134 and his Cabinet Makers Guide, l826, pl. XXXI.

Description:
The central suspended chest with reeded rectangular top above two short drawers and four long drawers, all with ceder lining, flanked to each side by a pedestal with central shell to the dome pediment, above a panelled door enclosing six shelves in total, on turned baluster feet, one foot replaced, four shelves later 61 ¾ in. (157 cm.) high; 92 in. (234 cm.) wide; 24 in. (61 cm.) deep PROVENANCE: James Edward Backhouse J.P. (d.1897), Hurworth Grange, Co. Durham and by descent to his son-in-law Jonathan Edward Hodgkin J.P., (d. 1952) of Dryderdale Hall, co. Durham, and by descent to the present owner. Footnotes:Hurworth Grange was designed in 1873 for the banker, James Backhouse, of Messrs Backhouse and Co. Darlington, by Alfred Waterhouse (d. 1905), celebrated as the architect of London's Natural History Museum. It was largely furnished by William Morris (d. 1896). Backhouse's son-in-law, Jonathan Edward Hodgkin inherited the wardrobe in 1875 and it was moved to Dryderdale Hall, Co. Durham, also designed by Alfred Waterhouse. This wardrobe, displaying Venus-shell badges in arched and reed-enriched pediments, is designed in the early l9th Century French / antique manner, and with its cupboard-flanked drawers relates to patterns for 'Ladies Dwarf Wardrobes' issued in George Smith's Collection of Designs for Household Furniture ' l808, pl. 134 and his Cabinet Makers Guide, l826, pl. XXXI.

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William (1834 - 1896). Autograph letter signed to an unidentified correspondent [Richard Marsden], Kelmscott House, 12 January 1884, acknowledging a copy of his correspondent's interesting periodical, and referrring to his forthcoming lecture in Manchester on 22 January; then clearing up a misunderstanding about his views on history and the evolution of society, criticising the middle classes, 'they think it an advantage that the bourgeoisie (who are the direct development of the serfs of the Middle Ages) should have overcome the privileged classes, and there they want to stop the evolution, and are blind to the fact that they, being now the masters, have opposed to them a class which has been born out of the great industrial revolution'; rejoicing in the prospect of change, 'one consequence of the bourgeois victory has been that art is dormant in all civilised countries; the victory of the proletariat with its consequences, the extinction of classes, will I feel sure set art free once more', and praising Ruskin's insight, continuing his argument, with an apology for such a long letter, and in a postscript discussing the use of indigo and other dyes, 7 pages, 8vo, annotated in blue pencil on first leaf 'To Richard Marsden Manchester' (slightly soiled in creases). Morris's vision of a new society was encouraged by the beginning of socialist agitation in England 'which is indeed the stronghold of the bourgeois class, but which more than one great thinker has deemed for that very reason will be the first country where socialism will take a definite and legalised form'. Richard Marsden was the author of technical works on cotton spinning and weaving, and in his postscript Morris digresses on the origins of madder, the word being of Teutonic and Scandinavian origin, from 'Mad an earthworm alluding to the rusty red thin roots doubtless'. He spoke at the Memorial Hall in Manchester on January 22, on Art under Plutocracy, before going on to speak at Leicester, but wrote a few days later to Jenny Morris that Manchester did not seem good ground for them - the workmen appeared to identify themselves with the middle classes.

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Kelmscott Press - Chaucer The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, ed. F.S. Ellis. Hammersmith: The Kelmscott Press, 8 May 1896 Folio (17 x 11 1/2 in.; 432 x 292 mm, uncut). Double columns, Chaucer type, some headings in Troy type, wood-engraved title-page, 14 full-page foliated borders, 18 narrow borders enclosing text illustrations, 26 large white-on-black initials, numerous 10-line and smaller white-on-black and black-on-white initials, printer's ornaments, printer's device, by C.E. Keates, W.H. Hooper, and W. Spielmeyer after designs by William Morris, 87 text illustrations by Edward Burne-Jones, redrawn in ink by R. Catterson-Smith and engraved by W.H. Hooper; first sheet slightly loose from sca003g. Publisher's quarter holland, blue boards; extremities somewhat rubbed, cloth slightly frayed on joints, corners bumped, very minor dust-soiling; cloth case. Magnificent production; one of 425 copies on paper from a total edition of 438. William S. Peterson says it best: the Chaucer came at the end of Morris's life, when he was able to pour into this single volume all his bibliophilic passion and his unmatched skill as a designer of ornaments; it is significant that even those readers who find Morris's pages too heavy or congested for their tastes feel compelled, in the end, to pay tribute to the Chaucer as one of the great books of the world." The final great work from the Kelmscott Press. References: Artist and the Book 45; Peterson A40; Peterson The Kelmscott Press, p. 228-257